Foreign Affairs

by Patricia Scanlan

  ‘Rest yourself now, Theresa, like a good girl. Don’t talk too much. Your husband won’t mind, he’ll be too busy looking at his little beauty.’ Nancy beamed as she fluffed up the pillows before leaving them alone.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ William said gruffly.

  ‘Tired, sore.’ She hesitated. ‘Did you talk to the doctor?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘I’ll move into the spare room,’ William said coldly. ‘I’ll not be accused of being irresponsible by Doctor Ward or any other.’

  ‘I’m sorry, William,’ Theresa said quietly. Although if she was completely honest, she felt a great relief at his words. Theresa was a dutiful wife but she did not love her husband. She had only married him to obey her parents’ wishes. Marrying the schoolmaster was considered almost as good as marrying a doctor or the like. Theresa’s mother had been terrified that her daughter would end up on the shelf and she had encouraged the match strongly. Marriage was not for pleasure, her mother had told her often enough. Marriage was a duty and Theresa had been brought up to be a good attentive wife. Able to run a house and when the time came, have and take care of the children God would bless her with. She was lucky, her mother informed her over and over again, that a man of William Stapleton’s calibre was taking an interest in her. The day of her wedding had been one of the happiest days of her mother’s life. Theresa had felt utterly and completely trapped.

  Only today, when Doctor Ward had told her no more children and William had informed her that he was moving into the spare room, had she felt the slightest glimmer of hope. A little fluttering of freedom. She would make this bedroom a haven, a peaceful place, Theresa decided. Here she would read and sew and look out at the hustle and bustle of village life. It would be her refuge from her husband. Happiness flickered briefly.

  ‘What will we call her?’ Theresa asked her stern-looking husband as she tucked the shawl closer around her baby.

  ‘Call her what you like,’ William answered with hardly a glance at his new-born child.

  Theresa’s hold tightened on the sleeping baby in her arms. So that was going to be the way of it, she thought. God help the poor child, William would hold this against her. Well she would do her best to make her feel happy and loved, after all, her arrival had given Theresa a freedom of sorts and for that she would always be in her daughter’s debt. Almost to herself she murmured, ‘Rachel, that’s what I want to call her. I’m going to call her Rachel.’

  Chapter Two

  Rachel Stapleton wished with all her might that the school bell would ring. They were starting their summer holidays today and she could hardly wait. They were supposed to be having a little party but Miss O’Connor was out sick and her father had set them a whole blackboard of sums to keep them quiet, while he took care of his own class. Everybody was giving out about it and some of her classmates were even glaring at her as if it was all her fault. It was very difficult being the headmaster’s daughter.

  The sun shone in through the high windows of the classroom. She could see the sky outside, so blue and clear, it was like a picture postcard. Rachel wished she was down playing by the stream. It was her favourite place. She liked throwing in leaves and bits of sticks or paper and watching them swirl away out of sight. Were they going to the sea, what foreign shores would they land on? Rachel loved imagining their journeys. Sometimes her brother Ronan let her play with him. Ronan, at nine, was a year older than her and very brave. He wasn’t afraid to swing across from the old oak tree to the other side of the stream. He was a special agent for UNCLE, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin depended on him. She knew he was only pretending but sometimes it got very exciting, especially when they had to crawl through Murphy’s hedge and run through the field where the bull was.

  Rachel was terrified of the bull, but Ronan wasn’t a bit scared. He wasn’t scared of anything. Not even of their father. A little frown creased Rachel’s forehead. She was scared of her father. He was very cross sometimes, especially if she made a mistake in her homework. He always checked it for her and woe betide her if there was a mistake in it.

  ‘Do you want Miss O’Connor to think we’ve a dunce in the family?’ he’d say. ‘It would match you better, Miss, if you’d learn your spellings instead of playing with those dolls of yours. Dolls will be no use to you when you’re doing your Leaving Cert.’ The thing was, she knew her spellings but when her father made her stand in front of him while he stood with his hands behind his back, waiting for her to rattle them off, butterflies would start dancing up and down her stomach and she’d get nervous and make mistakes.

  Why, she often wondered longingly, couldn’t she have had a farmer for a father, like Martina Brown. Martina and her brothers and sisters were allowed to stay up really late in the summer to help get the hay in. They were allowed to play in the haystacks and in the barns and camp in the paddock behind their house, and their father never made them say their spellings to him at night.

  Even better was to have a shopkeeper for a father. Mr Morrissey owned the sweet shop and newsagents in the village and it was open until ten o’clock at night. Hilda Morrissey was allowed to stay up late during the summer to help her father in the shop and she was even allowed to work the cash-register. How Rachel would have loved a cash-register. When she grew up and had loads of money she was going to buy a real one. Santa had brought her one last Christmas and although she had great fun playing shop she would still give anything to have a go of Morrissey’s real one.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a stinging sensation to her ear. A marble rolled down the front of her jumper. Rachel’s stomach twisted into knots. Patrick McKeown was flicking marbles at her again. Her ear hurt so much she wanted to cry, but they’d all call her a cry-baby. Patrick McKeown was the meanest, slyest, biggest bully in the class. He was always picking on her because he knew she’d never ever tell her father. If she told her father, the whole class would call her a tattle-tale and to be a tattle-tale was the worst thing. She pretended nothing had happened and kept her head down, staring at her copy book. Another missile reached its mark. This time on the back of her neck. A few of the other children sniggered. Rachel swallowed hard and bit her lip. She mustn’t cry in front of them. Why did Miss O’Connor have to be out today of all days? Rachel was petrified her father would come in and catch Patrick McKeown flicking marbles at her. Then he’d be punished and she’d really be in for it. He would wait for his chance, some day when she was on her own, and stuff worms or slugs down her dress. That was his favourite punishment. Rachel never knew when it was going to happen and consequently she always had to be on the look-out. She couldn’t tell anybody about what was going on because if she did, Patrick swore that he would murder her and bury her body in Doyle’s woods and no-one would ever find her. She woke up in bed at night her heart thumping in terror at the thought of it.

  ‘Have you got the answers to those sums, Swotty Stapleton?’ Patrick McKeown demanded, one eye on her, and one eye on the door. Rachel’s fingers shook as she passed back her copy book. Patrick grabbed it and swiftly copied down her answers. Then, slowly, deliberately, he ripped the page out of her copy book and scrunched it up in a tight hard little ball, flicking it at her with his ruler. ‘Do them neater,’ the hated bullying voice ordered. The rest of the class looked on approvingly as he threw her copy book back up towards her. Getting at Rachel Stapleton was almost as good as getting at the Master. With the eyes of the class upon her and to jeers of ‘Swotty’ from Patrick McKeown, Rachel stood up and walked down the passageway to retrieve her copy. Just at that moment her father walked through the door.

  ‘What are you doing out of your seat, Rachel Stapleton?’ He always called her by her full name at school.

  ‘Nnn . . . nothing, Sir,’ she stammered. Rachel had to call her father Sir at school.

  ‘Why is your copybook lying in the middle of the floor?’ the Master demanded. There was a collective intake of breath. Out of t
he corner of her eye, Rachel could see Patrick slowly drawing his finger from one side of his throat to the other in a slitting gesture and making horrible faces. Her heart began to pound. Her father glaring at her and demanding an explanation and Patrick McKeown prepared to slit her throat and God knows what else.

  ‘I’m waiting, Miss,’ the Master said sternly, his blue eyes like flints.

  ‘I . . . I let it fall.’ Her voice was no more than a whisper.

  ‘I can’t hear you.’ Her father folded his arms as the rest of the class waited in delicious trepidation. Would he give her the stick? Would he make her stand in the corner? And if he did, would she tell on Patrick McKeown? There’d be wigs on the green then. They sat enjoying every minute of the drama.

  ‘I said I let it fall, Sir.’ Rachel’s voice had a wobble in it and to her horror she could feel tears at the back of her eyes.

  ‘Stand in the corner for being out of your chair, Rachel Stapleton, and the rest of you get ready to give me the answers to your sums,’ the Master instructed, glaring at Rachel as she went over to the corner by the door. He was very annoyed with her, she knew, and he would not speak to her for the rest of the day. He would go home and tell her mother that their daughter was a disobedient child and how could he expect the rest of the school to obey him if his own daughter wouldn’t?

  Plop . . . plop plop plop. Big tears fell on to her shiny patent shoes as she stood with her back to the rest of the class and heard them calling out the answers to their sums, Patrick McKeown’s voice the loudest of them all. She had been so looking forward to today. To the party. To the bell going early because they were having a half-day. To running home to her mother with the news that they were off school until the first of September. It was going to be one of her happy days and now it was ruined.

  She heard her father say, ‘Very good, Room 4, now tidy up your bags, I’m letting you off twenty minutes early because Miss O’Connor is not in. Walk quietly, now,’ he warned, ‘or I’ll change my mind. Rachel Stapleton, stay in the corner please until you hear the bell go.’ There was silence until he left the room and then a frantic scrabbling as bags were packed at speed, the sooner to get out of the schoolhouse. Rachel stood with her back to them. At least the ordeal would soon be over and she didn’t mind waiting in the corner on her own. Patrick McKeown and his pals would be gone by the time she got out of school.

  A sharp stabbing pain in her bottom made Rachel yelp in pain.

  ‘Shut up, ya stupid cow, that’s just so ya don’t forget me,’ Patrick McKeown hissed as he brandished his compass at her. Just for good measure he stabbed her with it once more and then he was gone, followed by the rest of them, leaving her crying, in the hollow emptiness of the big classroom. Rachel hated Patrick McKeown with all her might and many was the night she went to bed and planned delicious revenge upon him. But much as Rachel hated her vicious classmate, she hated her father far more.

  Theresa Stapleton shook the flour off her hands and placed the apple crumble in the oven. She smiled to herself. Apple crumble was Ronan and Rachel’s favourite dessert and they’d relish it. She put the kettle on to boil, made herself a cup of tea and drank it standing at the sink looking out into the garden. It really was a beautiful day, she thought. One of the best so far this summer. A perfect day to be starting your school holidays. Maybe she’d pack up a picnic for tea and the three of them would go off down a country lane and find a nice field with a shady tree to sit under. She wouldn’t even bother to bring the paper, Theresa decided as she glanced at the headlines. She wanted to forget about the troubles of the world. Although it was good to see that President Johnson had signed a Civil Rights Act, containing the most sweeping civil rights law in the history of the US. Her eyes slid down the columns. There was trouble in Algeria, an army leader rebelling against Ben Bella’s rule.

  Enough! she decided. She didn’t want to read bad news today. She wasn’t in the humour for it. Usually Theresa was an avid reader of her husband’s Irish Times, mentally doing the Crosaire while he was at school. She wouldn’t dream of putting down the answers. William would have a fit. It was his habit to sit with his crossword in the evening after the Rosary and spend a pleasant hour or so stimulating his brain. He needed it, he often told her, after putting in six hours with the young hooligans he had to teach. This amused his wife although she never let on. The children of the village of Rathbarry and its surrounding areas could in no way be considered hooligans. If he had to teach in some of the tough schools up in Dublin he might have something to moan about. He had a cushy number as headmaster of the village school, a promotion he’d got three years ago.

  You’d think from the way he carried on that he was teaching in the Bronx, Theresa reflected, sipping her tea. William loved to make out that he had a hard life instead of counting his blessings and enjoying all the free time he had. But William was not one to enjoy himself, she thought glumly. He was very strict with the children and authoritarian towards her. He wore his title of headmaster with great pride and dignity and was very much a ‘presence’ in the village. Unfortunately, like the Queen, who is royal twenty-four hours a day, so too was William a headmaster twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It was extremely wearing. Although Theresa was looking forward to having her children off school for the summer holidays, she couldn’t say the prospect of having William under her feet all day made her dizzy with delight. Well she didn’t care. This summer was going to be the best ever for Ronan and Rachel. They were good kids, they deserved a bit of fun out of life. So today she was going to get things off to a good start with a picnic. She was going to take them to Bray a couple of times to go to the amusement arcades and to hell with William if he didn’t approve. Just because his mother had been very strict and he had no fun growing up as a child was no reason why his children should suffer the same fate.

  William Stapleton watched through the grimy windows of Room 6, as his daughter trudged across the school yard, head down, hands stuffed into her pockets. He shook his head and gave an annoyed ‘tsk.’ What kind of a way was that to walk? He’d have to tell Theresa to get on to Rachel about her posture. You couldn’t slouch your way through life. It didn’t make a good impression. He was sorry he’d had to be strict with her earlier on but he couldn’t let her away with disobedience.

  He had specifically told Room 4 they were not to leave their seats and what did he find upon walking in to check up on them but his own daughter out of her seat. He had to punish her. He couldn’t be seen to make a favourite out of his own child. Her classmates would be very resentful if he did. It was very difficult being a parent and headmaster to two children in the school. His son Ronan had once accused him of picking on him if you don’t mind. He’d got a clip in his ear for his impudence and Theresa hadn’t spoken to William for a week, accusing him of being too harsh.

  Theresa was far too soft on the children, he mused as he closed the window with a resounding bang. She would have them destroyed if he let her do half the things she wanted to do for them. Children had to be ruled with a firm hand. Some of the brats he had to teach were brats because they were allowed to do what they liked and go where they wanted. Well Rachel and Ronan would thank him in years to come. They might not appreciate the discipline now but when they were married with children of their own, they’d see that it was no easy task to rear a child.

  This summer they could both put in a bit of extra study, especially Rachel. That Miss O’Connor wasn’t the world’s greatest teacher as far as he could see, far too fond of letting her class do drawings and act out little plays. Too much nature study and not enough arithmetic and grammar and Gaeilge. A few hours’ tuition by him would benefit his daughter enormously and Master Ronan could sit in for it as well, he was much too casual in his approach to his studies.

  Well this summer there’d be plenty of chores and some extra studying and at least they wouldn’t come out with that dreadful whinge, ‘I’m bored.’ There was no place in his house for that sort of th
ing. William wiped off the blackboard with vigour and a sense of great self-satisfaction.

  ‘What’s wrong, love? You seem terribly down in the dumps and imagine being down in the dumps on the first day of the holidays,’ Rachel heard her mother say as she let herself in through the back door. There was a lovely smell coming from the oven and she began to feel a little better now that she was safe at home in her own kitchen with her mother smiling at her.

  ‘It’s just a bit warm,’ Rachel fibbed, wanting and yet not wanting to burden her mother with her woes.

  ‘Well take off that old pinafore now, you won’t have to wear it for eight whole weeks!’ Her mother smiled, ruffling Rachel’s fair curly hair. ‘I have your shorts and a T-shirt for you up on the bed so go and get washed and put your other stuff in the dirty clothes basket for me. Then after lunch I was thinking that you and me and Ronan might go for a picnic. It’s such a lovely day and it would be a nice start to the holliers.’

  In spite of herself Rachel’s spirits began to lift. A picnic with her mother and Ronan. No school for eight weeks. With any luck she mightn’t even see Patrick McKeown for the rest of the summer. Maybe things weren’t so bad after all. Of course her father would be home later and no doubt he’d have something to say about her bad behaviour, but at least she’d have the picnic to look forward to after it.

  ‘Stop daydreaming, Rachel, and run up and get changed.’ Her mother gave her a gentle nudge.

  ‘I’m going, Mammy.’

  Upstairs in her yellow and cream under-the-eaves bedroom, Rachel flung off her hated navy pinafore. Her mint-green shorts and a green and white striped T-shirt lay neatly on her patchwork quilt. Her Nana Nolan had made the quilt two years ago for her sixth birthday and Rachel loved it. It was full of different-coloured squares edged with navy and yellow trim and it gave the little room a homely rustic look. Rachel was sure her bedroom looked like Laura’s in Little House on the Prairie. One of her favourite books. Rachel loved to wrap herself in her quilt when the wind was howling down the chimney in winter and pretend that she was in the little cabin on the prairie and that they were being snowed in by the blizzards. In the privacy of her bedroom, Rachel became a different person. Sometimes she was Laura, sometimes she was a Fifth Former at St Clare’s, like her heroines from the Enid Blyton books that she got from the library every week and that she had to hide from her father because he didn’t approve of Enid Blyton. Sometimes she was Jo out of Little Women. She would wrap herself in her quilt and tie string around her middle and have a gorgeous long robe just like they had in the olden days. Rachel admired Jo enormously. She was so brave and determined and kind to a fault. Rachel envied her the love of her father. She had felt a huge lump in her throat when she read about her heroine cutting off her hair and selling it to make some money for her poor sick father. Rachel would never cut off her hair to make money for her father. He could die for all she cared. Sometimes she wrapped herself in her quilt robe and put one of her father’s big white handkerchiefs on her head and pretended she was the Blessed Virgin Mary appearing at Fatima. Her dolls were a rapt audience, sitting in a row at the end of the bed, and the Blessed Virgin always had a special message for Patrick McKeown. ‘You must tell him to mend his ways or the fires of hell will consume his immortal soul.’ The thought of Patrick McKeown and his soul being consumed by the fires of hell cheered Rachel up enormously.